1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an exposure head adapted to image a light beam emitted from a light emitting element with a lens, an image forming device using the exposure head, and an image forming method.
2. Related Art
As such an exposure head, there is proposed a device using a light emitting element array composed of a plurality of light emitting elements arranged linearly as described in, for example, JP-A-2000-158705 (Document 1). In such a line head, a light beam emitted from each of the light emitting elements provided to the light emitting element array is imaged by a lens as a spot to form a spot latent image on an image plane. Thus, the line head in the Document 1 forms a plurality of spot latent images aligned in a main-scanning direction.
Incidentally, in order for forming a more preferable spot latent image, it is desirable to form the spot latent image with a sufficient amount of light using a larger sized light emitting element. However, in the configuration described above having a plurality of light emitting elements arranged linearly, it is not easy to use larger sized light emitting elements. Because, in the case in which the light emitting elements with a larger size are used, there is possibility of causing interference between the light emitting elements respectively forming spot latent images adjacent to each other in the main-scanning direction. In the case in which the pitches between the light emitting elements are reduced for higher resolution, it becomes even more difficult to increase the sizes of the light emitting elements.